ProjectMonkey Posted June 1, 2012 Posted June 1, 2012 Hi everyone! We have a small bright classroom for training and development and would like to equip it with a ceiling/wall mounted Projector and suitable high quality pull down screen. The budget for the projector is low at between £300 - £500. Options we have look at thus far are: Epson EB-W12 2800 ANSI Lumens WXGA Projector (V11H428041) - dabs Epson EB-X11 projector the PJ would mostly be used for training videos, but there would be some computer training alos and PP slideshows, so must be good at images and text. I guess key factors are brightness (must be bright enough for daylight), image clarity (for text/images) and price. I would sincerely apreciate all input on this! Thanks in advance.
dgsmith Posted June 1, 2012 Posted June 1, 2012 The Epson EB-X11 is available for £275+VAT including the trade-in offer (£30+VAT for your old projector, not sure if just Epson or any). We are hoping to replace a batch of 8yr old projectors with the EB-X11. I don't think widescreen is worth the extra money, especially for us as we're moving back to desktops rather than laptops to drive projectors!
ProjectMonkey Posted June 1, 2012 Author Posted June 1, 2012 Thanks for the reply! It certainly looks up to the job - although a few more lumens would't have gone amiss! Do you know if there is a comparable short throw projector? I personally like to get up fron and point at everything, so it would be rally nice to have a ceiling mounted Short Throw machine if such a thing exists within the price range?
glennda Posted June 2, 2012 Posted June 2, 2012 Personally I would look at the Casio Range - if you are able to spend the extra £100,200 now then it will save you in the long run without needing to replace bulbs - 5 year warranty as well
Marc-Engineer Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Epson X11 much brighter that the Casio and much much more reliable and not susseptable to the Casio colour cast after a few 1000 hrs. Epson also have a 5 year on site cover and if you buy local from an epson dealer same day swapout!!! you also get 3 year lamp cover and with lamps now only £90 ish it makes the casio a poor buy. You can also set the epson to any distance from 3.2mtr to less than 2mtr for a 79" board. Marc Projector Engineer 1
SYNACK Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Epson X11 much brighter that the Casio and much much more reliable and not susseptable to the Casio colour cast after a few 1000 hrs. Epson also have a 5 year on site cover and if you buy local from an epson dealer same day swapout!!! you also get 3 year lamp cover and with lamps now only £90 ish it makes the casio a poor buy. You can also set the epson to any distance from 3.2mtr to less than 2mtr for a 79" board. Marc Projector Engineer If you're going epson get one with the EasyMP Network Projection built in as it can make things a lot easier for remote projection.
Tallwood_6 Posted June 7, 2012 Posted June 7, 2012 Epson X11 much brighter that the Casio and much much more reliable and not susseptable to the Casio colour cast after a few 1000 hrs. Epson also have a 5 year on site cover and if you buy local from an epson dealer same day swapout!!! you also get 3 year lamp cover and with lamps now only £90 ish it makes the casio a poor buy. You can also set the epson to any distance from 3.2mtr to less than 2mtr for a 79" board. Marc Projector Engineer The casio's go up to 3000 ANSI lumens and half the appeal is the fact that you can just install them and with any luck leave them for 5 years rather than having to deinstall every so often to change a bulb which will still be tha case with the epsons. That said if you dont care then the Epson EB-X11 do look great value.
Marc-Engineer Posted June 9, 2012 Posted June 9, 2012 The epson has a 5 year lamp life, but all projectors need servicing Casio's included i have many 10s of them to service they suck in dust same as any other device with a fan, yes they claim 3000 lumins but i have never seen one that bright as i say the Epson is brighter at Epson claimed 2600Lumins then the Casio's claimed 3000 Lumins some makers use an avarage screen brightness (epson) and some (i suspect Casio do) use the brightest spot on the screen to get their reading hence giving a higher reading than the other, but in actual in use would be dimmer. Benifit of the epson is the wider install distance and the on site cover with SAME day swap out from local Epson supplier. My opinions are from experiance not from any connection with any company or manufacturer Marc Projector Engineer
sjatkn Posted June 9, 2012 Posted June 9, 2012 I would also go with Epson EB-X11. However it depends who is ceiling mounting the projector. You may find the overall cost including the installation is similar if you went with an Epson EB-470 ultra short throw. I am told by my installer that putting them up is easy and being wall mounted the cable runs are shorter, so cheaper, mains power is on the wall so may be cheaper. I believe the wall bracket is included so no additional costs for that.
Michael Posted June 9, 2012 Posted June 9, 2012 I installed a couple of BenQ MS612ST recently and they're excellent quality for a low price. It should also be noted these are short throw and also include HDMI. Useful for Apple TV for example!
Marc-Engineer Posted June 9, 2012 Posted June 9, 2012 There shold be no differance between mounting a UCF projector (wall mount) and one mounted on a ceiling, cables are cheap so can be disregurded, main cost is labour then mount, i know we dont diferenciate between the two. Marc projector Engineer
Tallwood_6 Posted June 9, 2012 Posted June 9, 2012 The epson has a 5 year lamp life, but all projectors need servicing Casio's included i have many 10s of them to service they suck in dust same as any other device with a fan, yes they claim 3000 lumins but i have never seen one that bright as i say the Epson is brighter at Epson claimed 2600Lumins then the Casio's claimed 3000 Lumins some makers use an avarage screen brightness (epson) and some (i suspect Casio do) use the brightest spot on the screen to get their reading hence giving a higher reading than the other, but in actual in use would be dimmer. Benifit of the epson is the wider install distance and the on site cover with SAME day swap out from local Epson supplier. My opinions are from experiance not from any connection with any company or manufacturer Marc Projector Engineer A blow out/ clean up will be required with the casios but this can be done without taking the thing down. What i'm getting at is regardless of how great the warrenty and service from epson are every couple of years (depending on usage) you are going to have to contact epson to get a new bulb and take down the projector and swap it out which is just more hassel than the casio's if you have upwards of 50 projectors onsite.
Marc-Engineer Posted June 11, 2012 Posted June 11, 2012 (edited) I still dont understand your statement but anyway the cover on Casio is much the same as epson you you would still have to take it down for warrenty, yes epson do lamp replacement mounted but no matter. My point is the casio are not as cost efficient as at first belived and there are many not just epson that are better over the normal time period than casio also i dont recomend blowing air in the the unit it actually makes the dust infeltration worse they have to be stripped same as all other projectors. I think of them like flat screen brilliant idea but not quite there yet not cost effective, but all credit to them for brining them out. Marc Projector Engineer Edited June 11, 2012 by Marc-Engineer
Bananas Posted June 13, 2012 Posted June 13, 2012 Just looking at this as after 3 new projectors this year. Now like the look of the Epson EB-X11 but i've seen the EB-X14 is about £100 more for 3000 Lumens and HDMI. What do you reckon worth the extra £100 or not? Don't use the HDMI for anything here at the moment but I think the extra Lumens will come in handy if that's accurate.
Arthur Posted June 13, 2012 Posted June 13, 2012 What do you reckon worth the extra £100 or not? Considering how long schools keep projectors for, a HDMI port is essential IMO. You may regret going with a VGA only projector as the port starts to be phased out on laptops over the next few years. Many ultrabooks already do not have them and this number is only going to increase as manufacturers start making thinner laptops with flash storage instead of hard drives. Intel and AMD sign death warrant for VGA port « Ars Technica
K.C.Leblanc Posted June 13, 2012 Posted June 13, 2012 Considering how long schools keep projectors for, a HDMI port is essential IMO. You may regret going with a VGA only projector as the port starts to be phased out on laptops over the next few years. Many ultrabooks already do not have them and this number is only going to increase as manufacturers start making thinner laptops with flash storage instead of hard drives. Intel and AMD sign death warrant for VGA port « Ars Technica Also useful if you need to connect blueray players or an AppleTV for iPad streaming.
Bananas Posted June 13, 2012 Posted June 13, 2012 (edited) I agree, but people have been going on about the death of VGA for YEARS now, DVI was supposed to kill it, HDMI, Displayport etc etc. I doubt it'll ever truly be killed off because unless that tax issue changes if it hasn't already that is it's been awhile since I heard about it how widely it will be on laptops is the real issue and I could see it disappearing from them as you say but I really can't see it dying off in desktops any time soon (if ever). I just wondered if people thought HDMI and 400 lumens is worth it personally I think it is was interested to hear what others had to say. Does anyone have a source of cheap lamps for these, I know they're not massively expensive in the first instance but every little helps as they say Also useful if you need to connect an Xbox up for example as although you can use the cheaper connectors you might as well use the decent quality ones..... Misco quote £429 ex VAT for the X14 so we'll see what the account manager comes back with pricewise Edited June 13, 2012 by Bananas
Arthur Posted June 13, 2012 Posted June 13, 2012 people have been going on about the death of VGA for YEARS now While true, I actually think it's going to happen this time on both laptops and desktops. VGA ports are just too big and clunky, and they do not support resolutions higher than 2048×1536px which will be an issue in the near future. http://i.imgur.com/0Sw7i.jpg I will be glad to see the back of them. They cause far too many problems at our school.
Bananas Posted June 13, 2012 Posted June 13, 2012 (edited) At least they're generally securable but you always have the worry that some numpty can bend the pins.... We have desktops connected to whiteboard in the IT suites and to prevent them being disconnected and pulled about so people can plug laptops in I tightened all the VGA cables up with pliers. Got a call the other day saying I can't undo this cable to plug my laptop in. I said I know I did that for a reason...... I'm sure you're right about the resolution but again the only place this is really ever going to be an issue is on laptops and at the moment I really think we're a considerable way off resolutions getting that high on a portable device. I'm open to being proved wrong but I think we're probably still 3 years or so away from that. I think that resolution limit will ultimately be what kills it off though. I do like VGA for the simple fact that you can lock it in place which you can't often do with displayport or HDMI you are right though VGA sockets are ugly and bulky. I will kind of be sad to see them go, they've been around since forever and i'm kind of attached to them.... Edited June 13, 2012 by Bananas
APMerry Posted June 13, 2012 Posted June 13, 2012 We've found the Epson's to be slightly better quality than the Casio but the Casio are nice to have for high ceilings as ive found them to need a bit less maintainance. Would recommend HDMI as has been said VGA will slowly disapear, but overall i dont think you can go wrong with either brands. If you want the best picture go for the Epsons with high lumens.
Bananas Posted June 13, 2012 Posted June 13, 2012 Cool, well as nice as the Casio projectors are they're still a bit too much upfront for now. We've got LOADS of really old Epsons to replace still got old ones running 800x600 We're just waiting on some prices for the X14. I thought the highr lumens might be a good idea as some of the staff have been moaning about their old Epson projectors being too dim so that should help. Do a few this year and then roll forward from there. Ta guys!!
Arthur Posted June 13, 2012 Posted June 13, 2012 Have you looked at NEC? The V260X is great if you need a cheap projector with HDMI + VGA ports, a 3000-5000 hour 2,600 lumen lamp and XGA (1024x768) resolution. We paid "]£315 for ours and they are bright enough for the classrooms we have installed them into. The only downside is that they are not widescreen, but you can't have everything. you always have the worry that some numpty can bend the pins.... Very much so! There is nothing worse than a ham-fisted teacher bending pins and/or completely snapping the VGA port off of a perfectly good laptop (and then doing it again on a further two laptops in quick succession!).
SYNACK Posted June 13, 2012 Posted June 13, 2012 Get one of the Epson ones with a network port and support for EasyMP network Projection. This kills the need for other ports at all as you can chuck soud and video at it across the network from anywhere. Much better for portability and much leass likelyhood of port breakages due to teacher heavyhandedness.
e-class Posted June 13, 2012 Posted June 13, 2012 The Epson EB-X11 is available for £275+VAT including the trade-in offer (£30+VAT for your old projector, not sure if just Epson or any). We are hoping to replace a batch of 8yr old projectors with the EB-X11. I don't think widescreen is worth the extra money, especially for us as we're moving back to desktops rather than laptops to drive projectors! Hi Where did you get this quote from as we are looking for one too. Thanks
dgsmith Posted June 13, 2012 Posted June 13, 2012 Hi Where did you get this quote from as we are looking for one too. Thanks Insight have them for £293 + VAT each, so they have come down a bit over the last day or so, as that now equates to £263 + VAT with the trade in offer. We're buying 4 of them tomorrow.
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